Upward Growth

Monday, January 19, 2009

First, I want you to cut or print out a picture of your ideal body. Second, I want to you to take this picture and focus on it for 1-2 minutes a day. By focus, I mean to see yourself as having this body. You could see yourself moving around swiftly, walking confidently, lifting weights powerfully, whatever it is that is in alignment with what you want. Third, as you are visualizing, I want you to really feel the feelings as if you had your ideal body now. Fourth, go and take some ACTION to make your imaging a reality.

Remember this, IMAGINATION is greater then willpower. Or Imagination > Willpower. Most people who want to get into shape are trying to use their willpower to do so. What they’re doing is using their will to try and battle against these strong subconscious concepts they have about how they should look and feel. What they should be doing instead, is using their IMAGINATION to send powerful images to their subconscious to create what they want. As your subconscious controls things like your habits, beliefs, and bodily functions, it will go to work on creating this new in-shape you just as it would have continued to keep you at your current level.

I remember the first time I tried this experiment. Prior to the experiment, I always weighed around 155lbs. Being 5’10 and 155lbs was too skinny for me at the time. After hearing about this exercise from my good friend Dr. Goldman, I decided to put it to the test. I cut out a picture of this big bodybuilder from Men’s Fitness Magazine and pasted a picture of my face over his body.The picture I used to get bigger.

The picture I used to get bigger.Every day for about a month, I would visualize myself as having the body in that picture. What was the result? Within two months, I had gained something close to twenty of muscle! In fact, I had gotten so big that I had to lose some muscle as all the excess mass was slowing me down whenever I did my boxing and kickboxing workouts.

I want to add in another note. As I had reprogrammed myself to be this big bodybuilder guy, it was very tough for me to lose the weight I had now put on. It wasn’t until I put up a picture of a new body-type, and started visualizing that, that the weight came off.The picture I used to get slimmer. That's Ultimate Fighting Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre.

The picture I used to get slimmer.Another interesting note was that when I started seeing myself in my new, slimmer, and leaner body-type, I also started visualizing myself as being taller. Sure enough I managed to grow and inch or two and this is while I was twenty-six years old.

Happy New Year everyone!!! I hope this year brings you all much love, happiness, and success.

New Year’s Goals

The purpose of this writing is to make sure that you hit your new year’s goals! I want to see you shine in 09! To make sure you do that, I’m going to help you out as best I can.

Imagination

This year instead of trying to use your willpower to force yourself into hitting your new year’s goals, try using your IMAGINATION instead. I cannot stress the power of imaging enough. When you image your goals as being complete, you’re sending powerful images to the subconscious portion of your mind. As your subconscious controls things like your habits, beliefs, and bodily functions, it will go to work on creating the images you send it. As it’s been said that over 90% of what you do is subconscious; you drive to work the same way every day, put your pants on the same way every day, eat the same foods every day, etc… You want to impregnate your subconscious with images you would like to see manifested in your life. After you do your imaging, I want you to write up some beautiful affirmations to reinforce your good work, and then take action on your plans to make them a reality.

It’s very simple.

Imaging

1. You can write out some goals such as “My book completed” “House on the lake” “My body weight is 170” and visualize how you would look and feel if these were already completed.

2. You can write out “I am so happy and grateful that…” and write out your ideal life and read it to yourself every morning.

3. You can simply sit down in a relaxing position and visualize your perfect 09.

Make sure to do your images daily or at least weekly. Don’t just do your images once and then forget completely about them. Sometimes once might be enough, other times it might take some time for your images to become a reality. You’re developing a new way of thinking, so give yourself some time. Also, be sure to image for at least a minute or two a day. It’s been said that it takes on average thirty-three seconds for a concept to reach the subconscious portion of your mind. I want you to spend a minute or two so that I know it’s really getting in there. Also, be patient! Some people do their imaging on Tuesday and are upset on Wednesday that they don’t have what they want. Give time for what you want to reach you.

It’s been said, “Plan your work, and work your plan”. Have some type of plan for 09 that you stick to. You could say that you will exercise for an hour a day, Monday-Friday. Or you could plan to do fifteen minutes of reading some type of self-improvement book or article every day. Remember to use imaging to make your plans a reality! For instance, if your plan is to get in great shape, you could visualize yourself getting up every morning, going to the gym, having a great workout, and looking good. When I started a new morning exercise regiment, that was exactly what I did. As the regiment was earlier then I was used to getting up at, I simply started visualizing myself getting up early every morning, feeling good, having a great workout, and then looking great. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

Find Someone to Help You

For those wanting to get into shape, having a workout partner is a great way to keep you on track. You can both support and push each other to do more. Also, on the days you might feel down or thinking about skipping your workout, your partner can provide that extra push to get your butt into gear.

Keep It Simple

Make sure to follow the KISS principle which is “Keep It Simple, Stupid”. Don’t set 1,000,000 goals and achieve none. Instead, set one or a few goals that you’re really passionate about. One goal completed is worth at least five or ten half-done. Also, don’t try to do everything in a day! I have a friend who does this. Every few months he decides he is going to get into shape. So he goes to the gym, exercises for a few hours, and then after a week or so is completely burnt out. Keep it simple! If you’re not in shape and want to be, give your body time to build up. Maybe you’ll start with twenty minutes of walking a day, then proceeding to add in some squats, abdominals, and pushups. Give yourself some time and also congratulate yourself on the good work you’re doing.You in 09?

You in 09?

Celebrate Your Successes

As you’re going through 09, make sure to take some time to celebrate your successes. For instance, if I do something right, sometimes I’ll literally stop and pat myself on the back to acknowledge my good work. I even have a nightly ritual where I make sure to replay the day’s events in my mind. If I did anything wrong, I replace that image with what I should have done. After going through what went wrong, I then replay what went right for the day. If something went right, I celebrate my success.

The purpose is to have you doing more of the good and less of the bad. As Dr. Fleet likes to say, “As you eliminate the negative, you will be left with the positive”. After a while of doing this, you’ll start to feel really clean and peaceful inside.

Heart

Lastly, do what you LOVE. Don’t do something because you think you have to. Do it because you WANT to. Do what gets you excited, what has you feeling good. I write on this website because I love it. I love to teach. It gets me excited. I love seeing people grow and achieving what they want. Do what you love and the money, fame, joy, etc. will follow. It has to!

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." Albert Einstein (Winner, Nobel Prize in Physics)

One of the easiest things you can do to bring more success to your life in any area is to visualize it. Star athletes use visualization all the time to improve their performances so why shouldn't you use it to improve your life performance?

Visualizing success means creating clear pictures in your mind of having already achieved your goals. A few reasons visualizing success works are because it re-programs your brain to create new solutions for achieving your goals, it helps you see ideas that you may have been ignoring, and it relaxes and calms your body. Also, if you believe in the law of attraction, visualization helps attract the things you want to achieve into your life.

Here are six steps for applying visualization to bring more success into your life:

1) Decide on a specific goal you want to achieve such as a better relationship with someone, a new house, successful mornings with your kids, or the amount money you want in the bank. (When you are just starting out, pick a goal that you consider realistic. As you get better at visualization, you should add goals that are bigger challenges or are well beyond your comfort zone.)

2) Close your eyes and imagine yourself succeeding at that goal - see it as already complete.

3) Make the pictures in your mind as clear and complete as possible with vivid details. For example: What color is your new house? What does each room look like? What are you doing in the house? What sounds do you hear?

4) Feel what it feels like to be successful at that goal. Are you relaxed, happy, proud? Also, see if you can imagine a sense of peace that you might feel inside at having achieved your goal.

5) Try to do these steps at least twice a day for 10 minutes if possible - first thing when you wake up and again right before you fall asleep. If you are feeling overly stressed about a goal or decision, take a few minutes to visualize your success at that situation several times a day. This will help your body feel less stressed about it.

6) Visualization helpers - some people find it helpful to collect pictures to create "vision boards" or "goal books" where they paste or draw pictures that symbolize what they're trying to achieve. Also, you can keep a small notebook for writing down ideas of success as they come to you.

Visualization is a powerful tool that your mind uses all the time - maybe without you even being aware of it. Often when people are not succeeding at something, it's because they are habitually and perhaps unconsciously visualizing failure, pain, and negative situations. If you want to succeed , then take control of the images in your mind and use these six steps to visualize your personal version of success!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

To achieve greatness, direction, your goals and dreams, one must know where they are going. To arrive at your desired location of greatness, it is a good idea to write out a personal mission statement. In this entry, we will guide you through writing out your statement, to achieve a better you and obtain your goals.

You can choose the world that you live in. Now, some of you may argue with this point, but, I ask that you consider the following... This world is all about perspective. You can take any experience and come out many different ways, depending upon how you view the situation. For example, let's say that you were late for work because you accidentally slept in and did not hear your alarm clock. This can be viewed different ways. One: "Damn, I slept in, I can't believe it! I am going to be late again!!!!!!!" Two: "I slept in, oops. Maybe this happened for a reason. Perhaps I was saved from a wreck by not getting out the door 30 minutes ago... or perhaps it is good I loose this job to pursue a better one and one that I would actually enjoy".

Next time you are confronted with an issue you may not enjoy... think about your perspective and turn it into the world you want. Negative or positive? You choose.

Everything you do, everything that any other person does, every time you see something, hear something, tastes something, smell or touch or get touched... your brain gets pulsed. Our experiences in life touch our brains and souls in such a way that we do not even realize that we have been touched most times. The pulses become automatic. In a way, this can be a scary thought. If we see something horrible and it was enough to trigger a "pulse" in our mind, it becomes a part of us... even if we do not want it to become a part of us.

So, we are healthy people wanting to be healthier... what do we do about these negative forces all around us, so that they do not influence us? The answer is to over come with more positive. More successful thoughts, more positive autosuggestion. Then, we can overcome the negative around us. Press on!